


to be continued

by starsystems



Series: queliot ficlets [3]
Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Established Relationship, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Post-Season/Series 04, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-14
Updated: 2019-05-14
Packaged: 2020-03-05 13:49:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18829945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starsystems/pseuds/starsystems
Summary: “I’d marry you,” Eliot says.





	to be continued

**Author's Note:**

> Look, I'm not even gonna apologize for this horribly fluffy piece of nonsense.
> 
> the working title was "eliot waugh is super romantic" which is arguably a better title for this.

“I’d marry you,” Eliot says into the stillness of Quentin’s room at Kady’s (Marina’s? Eh, whatever, Eliot doesn’t actually care) penthouse. The room is warm from the late afternoon sun and Eliot’s been watching specks of dust dance in the air for what feels at least an hour.

He’s being aggressively spooned by Quentin, his shorter frame wrapped all around Eliot like an octopus, his mouth pressed over the knobs of Eliot’s spine, at the base of his neck.

“Huh?” Quentin sounds against his skin, half-asleep and sluggish.

Eliot’s not sure what made him voice that thought.

It has been one of the not-so-great days, when neither of them had felt like getting out of bed was an achievable goal. Days like these still ambushed them, from time to time, but they didn’t come as often as they had, in the beginning. They dealt with them mostly by hiding in Quentin’s room.

It has been five months since Eliot woke up in a hospital bed, to a crying Margo and no one else in the room.

_“Bambi,” Eliot said and reached out to her. She clasped his hand in hers, tightly, so tightly._

_“El, I...”_

_“Where’s Quentin?” he asked, unable to stop himself, hoping that Quentin had just stepped outside, went to get some sleep, would be right back, but fearing, fearing, the pit of his stomach a gaping hole._

_“Something happened,” Margo said, tears streaming down her face. “It’s not. It’s not good, El.”_

_Eliot stared at her and the hole in his stomach grew impossibly wider._

_“They are saying he might not make it, El.”_

_ Eliot couldn’t breathe. _

_The windows behind Margo’s back shattered. The shards not exploding in or out, just falling, falling to the floor._

“El?” Quentin asks again. “What did you say?” He shifts away and up, peers down at Eliot’s face over his shoulder.

“Look. I’m. I’m not proposing, or, you know, asking you to propose, I just,” Eliot says, his mouth feeling dry. “I just thought you should know. I’d marry you.” He shifts onto his back, letting Quentin hover over him and frown at him all he wants.

He wants to meet Quentin’s eyes but doesn’t quite make it. Instead, he concentrates on Quentin’s scar, tracing over his left shoulder and going up his neck all the way up to his jawline.

The scars look like someone had set off sparklers in Quentin’s skin, thin white lines gathering into starbursts and then moving onwards. His whole back is the same. His fucking _“Boy Who Lived-scar”_ , as Quentin calls it. Eliot both loves and hates it, the violent reminder that Quentin is alive and that he almost wasn’t.

Quentin is self-conscious about it, taken to placing the palm of his left hand over it, on the side of his neck, like he’s trying to hide it from view. And when Eliot presses a hand on Quentin’s neck, to pull him into a kiss or just _closer_ , he can feel the raised lines of it against his palm.

Sometimes he can barely breathe through the dread of it, of what he almost lost. The-- the fucking _possibility_ of it is enough to send him spiraling downwards, leaving him watching time slip through his fingers.

It’s been five months since Eliot woke up, and only three of those months he’s been with Quentin. Eliot knows, he _knows_ three months _(give or take fifty years)_ is not enough time to be having this conversation, but.

But he has been thinking it, for weeks now, once or twice every day. When Quentin laughs, says something, looks at Eliot, looks out the window, looks beautiful.

 _I’d marry you. I_ want to _marry you._

The thought has been driving him crazy, and maybe that’s why he says it out loud. Or maybe it’s the way Quentin keeps telling him they have all the time in the world now, or the way Eliot is not so sure about that.

Or maybe it’s just that Quentin deserves to know.

Eliot finally risks a glance at Quentin’s face and finds him smiling down at him. He’s smiling so wide, like Eliot has done something _right_ for a change, and that is crazy, because telling your boyfriend of three months that he wants to get married is crazy.

Eliot, helplessly, smiles back.

“So,” Quentin smiles. “Not a proposal.”

Surprising even himself, Eliot finds his voice. “No. When I propose to you, it’ll be a lot more romantic than this.” He gestures to their unwashed hair, sweaty sleep clothes and the way their sheets are crumpled from them lying in bed all day.

Quentin huffs out a short, embarrassed laugh, pressing his mouth into a line, trying to rein his grin in. “ _When_ you propose?”

“Well, obviously. Didn’t I just tell you? I thought I said the words _marry_ and _you_ out loud. Twice.”

Quentin laughs again and leans in to place a kiss on the corner of Eliot’s mouth. “I’d say yes,” he mutters against Eliot’s skin, against the uncontrollable smile Eliot feels spreading on his face.

When Quentin pulls back, Eliot can see him blushing. “Well, I’m hungry,” Quentin says and scrambles out of the bed, stumbles out of the bedroom door, getting redder and redder as Eliot watches him go.

Eliot can feel his heart in his throat, but it’s a good feeling, this time. He turns and presses his stupid, grinning face into Quentin’s pillow and _breathes_.

* * *

(Eliot lasts about a month more and then there’s a morning when he shuffles into the living room, his hair uncontrollably messed up by sleep and Quentin’s hands and comes to a stop. Quentin is sitting on the couch, nursing a cup of coffee, his hair almost as crazy as Eliot’s.

“Morning, honey,” Quentin mutters into his cup, distracted and still half-asleep.

Eliot stares. He can hear Julia in the kitchen, muttering to herself, and he remembers. After breakfast, Eliot’s going to Fillory, to see Margo and Fen, and Quentin is meant to leave with Julia, on a quest, of which details are unimportant, because. Because.

Quentin unironically called him _honey_ and, somehow, _that_ is too much for Eliot to handle. His heart is hammering in his chest from the dawning realization of what he’s about to do. He had some vaguely formed ideas on how to go about this, when the right time came, but all of them are instantly abandoned just because Quentin Coldwater has made a mess of his heart.

“Q,” Eliot breathes out and takes a few long strides until he’s standing in front of Quentin’s sleep-crumpled form.

Then he drops to one knee, and Quentin almost drops his coffee, eyes widening.

“Will you marry me?” Eliot asks, staring straight at Quentin, unblinking. He probably looks crazed, but he can’t help it. He _feels_ crazed and a little like he’s about to faint.

He vaguely hears a crash and an indistinct _“what the_ fuck _?”_ from the kitchen.

“Yes,” Quentin says and laughs, and laughs.)

**Author's Note:**

> There is now a short coda for this fic where Eliot tells Margo. [It's on my tumblr.](https://savethehales.tumblr.com/post/184962095131/tbc-coda)


End file.
